Keynote Speaker

Keynote at the 20th European Congress of Psychology, ‘Psychology: Responding to the Challenges of Technology and Humanity’, Belgrade, Serbia, 7-10 September 2027

Early gestures play a central role in the emergence of intentional communication and language. Through gestures, from the second half of the first year of life, infants begin to share attention, express intentions about external referents, engage with others, and construct meaning before spoken language is fully available. Developmental research has traditionally focused on pointing as the key milestone of early communication, to the extent that its absence is considered an early warning sign in autism spectrum disorder. However, important questions remain unresolved: How do children move from acting on objects to communicating through and about them? How do gestures support not only communication, but also the regulation of action and attention? And how are these processes shaped within everyday interactions at home and in early-years schools?

Drawing on longitudinal observational research conducted in early-years schools in Madrid, Spain, this keynote explores gestures as both communicative tools and sociocognitive tools for self-regulation. I will present evidence showing that ostensive gestures, such as showing and giving, emerge earlier than pointing gestures, are more frequent, and fulfill many of the communicative and regulatory functions traditionally associated with pointing. Ostensive gestures are deeply rooted in children’s interactions with objects, where objects become part of the communicative act itself. Although ostensive gestures may constitute developmental precursors to pointing, they remain largely overlooked in developmental research, partly because traditional definitions of gesture tend to exclude gestures produced while holding objects, restricting the notion of gesture to empty-hand movements.

Beyond the classical distinction between declarative and imperative communication, gestures also fulfill a broader range of functions, including informative, evaluative, phatic, and interrogative within everyday interactions. In addition, gestures take private, self-directed forms during cognitively challenging moments, suggesting that they support early processes of attention control, action regulation, and meaning construction long before spoken language is consolidated.

The presentation will also highlight the role of early-years educators as active mediators of gesture development, showing how everyday activities involving material objects and instruments, and responsive interactions support the emergence of communication and self-regulation during the first year of life.

These findings invite us to rethink gestures not simply as precursors of language, but as embodied and semiotic systems through which infants organize action, regulate attention and its own behavior, share experiences, and progressively construct meaning in interaction with others. By broadening our understanding of gestures and their functions, this work also aims to contribute to professional practices in early childhood education, developmental assessment, autism research, and early intervention, particularly regarding the origins of communication and executive functioning.